


Armor Stand Showdown

by Leopardmask



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Action Scene, Gen, Yes again, armor stand magic, kinda crack i guess, no beta we die like Zedaph learning about armor stands, non-permanent minecraft death, season 7, slime-guy body horror, specifically Cleo's little guardian-headed buggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardmask/pseuds/Leopardmask
Summary: Magical forces are seeping into the shopping district, and they've brought Cleo's fiercest armor stand creations to life. The hermits must team up with some unusual, silent allies in order to find the little beasts and bring them down.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Armor Stand Showdown

**Zedaph was slain by Armor Stand**

<Grian> lol

<impulseSV> What, again?

<Zedaph> It wasn’t my fault this time!

<Tango> Oh, yeah, those can be so vicious when provoked, right?

<Zedaph> I’m being serious! I saw this little guy trying to sneak up on me, didn’t know what it was

<Tango> You tried to pet it, didn’t you

<Zedaph> So maybe I tried to pet it! It didn’t have to beat me to death!

<ZombieCleo> Wait, ‘little guy’?

<Zedaph> Is he one of yours?

<ZombieCleo> it 

<ZombieCleo> might be

<Tinfoilchef> Busted!

<ZombieCleo> You hush

<ZombieCleo> Short little thing, blue face, one eye, holding a bone or something?

<Zedaph> That’s the bugger!

<ZombieCleo> Greeeeeat -_-

<GoodTimeWithScar> Cleo! The shopping district is supposed to be a safe place for everyone!

<xBCrafted> Oh, is it now?

<falsesymmetry> Funny, that

<ZombieCleo> Well I certainly wasn’t trying to sic my minions on anyone who walked by

<ZombieCleo> They weren’t even supposed to be animate

<BdoubleO100> Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go beat the life out of ‘em!

<ZombieCleo> Hopefully we won’t have to

<ZombieCleo> But just in case

<ZombieCleo> Anyone willing to fight off a bunch of demonic child armor stands, meet me in front of Town Hall

  
  
  


Cleo clapped loudly to disperse the general murmuring. “Okay, okay, listen up, you all. You saw the chat - we’ve got thirteen armor stand buggers on the loose. Probably mostly in the area where I set them up, over near False’s shops. I tried animating these particular ones before, and it did not go well. They’re mean little guys and you should try not to let them outnumber you. And definitely do not try to pet them. I don’t know how they came to life this time, but here they are, and they need dealt with. There might be another monster floating around somewhere too, big black thing with an orange eye. I’ll be around and about with this-” Cleo held out her armor stand spellbook - “trying to deanimate them all. Meantime, keep them distracted, and, uh... try not to let them kill you too much.”

"We should set up a voice group on our comms," Tango suggested. "So we can talk to each other and coordinate better."

"Yes," Cleo agreed, pulling out her own communicator. "Let's do that."

With that taken care of, the posse of hermits - Tango, Impulse, Xisuma, False, Wels, Ren, Jevin, and Joe - trooped down the path, with Cleo reluctantly leading them to the area where the statues had been. Before they even got there, Tango yelped as a guardian-headed standbeast appeared from its hiding spot inside Jrumbot and jumped him. It scratched at his back and arms until quick-thinking Impulse grabbed it, pulled it away from him, and, unsure what to do next, chucked the thing as hard as he could. It ran off.

“It’ll be back,” Cleo grumbled. She looked around, noting the empty hollow under False’s dimension shop. “And, yep. Of course the big guy is loose too.”

Wels looked around at the static armor stands still spaced around the area, “fighting” enemies that were no longer there. “Why did these other stands stay put? How come just the little biters are running around causing havoc?”

“Well, it doesn’t take much to animate something with an animal head,” Cleo explained. “You can almost just bonk them on the head with the book and they'll start up. Just a little bit of loose soul magic will do. Bit surprised that the big guy got loose, but he’s just items, which is like one step up. People armor stands take some more conscious effort to...” Cleo cut herself off. “Speaking of... we could probably use a bit of extra manpower.” She opened the spellbook. “Mind if I...?”

Wels nodded. “Go right ahead.”

Cleo put her hand on the shoulder of the armor stand statue of him and murmured something. A brief glow of magic later, the statue shifted on its feet, looked around, and saluted at Cleo. The real Wels winced and brought his hand to his head, looking momentarily dizzy.

“Sorry about that,” Cleo apologized. “Something about pieces of souls or copies of souls or something in heads. It’s the reason I can animate them in the first place, but it does throw the owner of the head off for a bit. It's the reason I don’t usually animate my hermit statues. You good?”

Wels blinked hard a few times. “I’ll get used to it. Are we going after the bigger creature?”

“Sure.” Cleo nodded, and Wels and his statue started trotting in opposite directions around the perimeter of the nylium area.

“Clearly not every little guy is staying where the nylium is,” Cleo pointed out. “Tango, Impulse, you want to go check some of the nearby places in the district? I can send your statues with you or have them fight here - they’ll be better at fighting than searching, though.”

“Bodyguards as we’re looking?” Impulse suggested. Tango nodded. Moments later, the four of them were off on their search.

“Right then.” Cleo marched into the nylium district, acting much more confident than she felt. “We’ll spread out. I’m going to animate the statues of everyone who’s fighting here, but I don’t want to mess with anyone who doesn't know I'm doing it, so it’ll just be us. I would like at least one person nearby while I’m working, so I can get that done. If you manage to capture a live one, I’ll try to deanimate it and maybe figure out why they’re alive in the first place, but don’t worry about killing them if you have to. Got it? Good.”

\-----

**joehillssays was slain by Armor Stand**

<Tango> Did you try to pet one too?

<joehillssays> Well, I try my best to learn from others' mistakes when possible, so no, I did not.

<joehillssays> I tried to reason with one.

"Joe..." Cleo's exasperated voice came over his communicator.

"Sorry about that, Cleo," Joe replied. "I should have realized that simple armor stand consciousnesses would not understand and react positively to my rhetoric. I hope my facsimile was not too poorly affected by my sudden death."

Cleo sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It isn't just simple consciousnesses sometimes," she muttered. In a normal tone, she assured him, "Your statue is fine. It hitched a little while you were respawning, but it's actually making a decent bodyguard, despite the fact that I may have forgotten to give it a sword."

"Oh, it can have mine," Joe offered cheerfully. "It'll be somewhere on the northern end of the paths. I forgot to lay my hand on one of the Town Hall beds and seem to be all the way back at my winery, so I don't think I'll be returning to the fray any time soon."

“We’ll make an effort to get it,” Cleo assured him. “Hopefully the daemon that killed you wasn’t smart enough to get there first.”

\-----

Wels turned right from the district entrance, making his way around the front of the chest monster shop. He did his best to stay alert and not get distracted by the nagging sense that he should have been, or was, somewhere north of there at the same time.

A noise to his right caught his attention. Wels turned and raised his shield just in time for a section of chain to loudly  _ thwack _ against it.

The projectile came from a large, black creature, hunched just behind Bdubs' block of shops. It had no legs, just two long arms. It stared at Wels with its orange eye and bared jagged quartz teeth.

Wels advanced on it, sword drawn. The beast threw the chain in its other hand, then ripped a trapdoor off the building behind it and threw that as well. Wels blocked most of the debris, but the onslaught kept him from getting close.

A yell sounded from the roof. Before Wels or the beast could look, Ren crashed down toward it, impaling his sword through its head. He landed for only a moment before the beast shook him off and he rolled away. The beast didn't seem bothered by the sword in its head, but Wels took the distraction as an opportunity to rush forward and slice one of its arms off. He moved to help Ren, but the beast used its remaining arm to throw another trapdoor at him.

Ren bounced to his feet, apparently relatively unhurt. "Dude!! That was awesome! How come your sword worked and mine didn't, though?"

"Your idea was great," Wels commended, "except this thing doesn't have a brain for a stab like that to reach. It's mostly made of sticks - the best tactic would be cutting it apart."

"Riiight, I gotcha!" Ren pulled out his axe. "Well, I'm always down for some chopping! Let's go!" He charged the beast again, leaving Wels to cover defense. Between the two of them, they managed to cut off the beast's other arm. Ren earned a sharp bite on the leg for his efforts, but left the beast mostly helpless on the ground.

"Cleo?" Wels called into his communicator. "We've... disarmed... the big one. Ready for you to come work your magic."

  
  
  


Cleo burst out laughing when she saw it. "'Disarmed', right, I see!" Warily, she stepped close. The creature snarled at her, but she calculatedly stayed just out of biting range as she flipped pages in her spellbook. When she found the page she wanted, Cleo murmured something that neither Wels nor Ren could understand, but sounded vaguely rude, and placed her palm flat on the page. A brief spark of white magic passed between Cleo, the book, and the creation, freezing the beast in place once more.

"Right then!" Cleo shut the book emphatically. "Thank you for not pulling it completely apart. This one took a while to build, and I'm hoping I can replace them once we know this won't happen again. Now that this guy is taken care of, maybe you two can help Tango and Impulse search the island? Lots of hermits are currently fighting - your statue killed the one that got Joe, actually, Wels - but we've still got a bunch of little guys unaccounted for."

"Yes, ma'am!" Wels saluted. Ren followed his lead.

"Oh, don't salute," Cleo winced. "I only let my armor stands do that sometimes because I made them. You two aren't my subordinates, you're my  _ friends." _

"Got it." Wels nodded, and both he and Ren apologized before trotting off to join the island search.

\-----

False and her armor stand found that they didn’t make a bad team. False flushed standbeasts out of hiding, straight into the path of her stand’s bow. False got a few shots in, too, keeping her distance from the vicious critters whenever she could. 

As it turned out, against single-armor-stand beasts, bows worked excellently, as long as the archer could actually hit their skinny forms - which False could do relatively well. After a couple “kills”, she tried switching roles with her armor stand, as she was a much better shot than it was. 

The hermit-stand, though, was not fast enough to lead a standbeast all the way to False. The standbeast jumped the statue, its momentum carrying both to the ground. False aimed her bow, but the standbeast's erratic movements carried it out of harm's way, leaving the arrow to hit her armor stand double instead. It popped apart with an anticlimactic clatter.

False reeled for a moment. She would have a hard time describing the sensation later: as if every action she made suddenly took less mental energy than it did while the stand was intact - but flipping that switch was jarring.

She used her rediscovered reflexes well, as she drew her sword and slashed the standbeast that was now charging her, knocking it away. It stood, wobbling from the cracks across its wooden body, and waved its club menacingly. A second sword strike dispatched it for good.

"Got a third one," False reported into her communicator. "Lost my armor stand in the process, but I don't think that's a  _ huge _ deal."

"Thank you," Cleo acknowledged. "Great work, False!"

"Heck yeah!" Ren exulted. "That's our Falsey, baby!"

\-----

Movement out of the corner of Xisuma's eye caught his attention. He turned just in time to see one of the little standbeasts running around the corner.

"Oh, no you don't," he growled, running after it with his sword drawn.

He found himself at the entrance to a small cave that hadn't ever been covered over or decorated. The standbeast disappeared farther in.

Xisuma stepped into the cave, listening for the tiny, clicking footsteps of the standbeast. Heavier footsteps behind him made him turn, and nearly startled him out of his skin when he found himself looking into his own face. He pointed his sword on instinct and almost stabbed the other before the logical part of his brain kicked back into gear.  _ Not red - green. Armor stand. Right. _

He lowered his sword, heart still hammering. "Hello there," he tried. "Come along then. Two heads are better than one, I suppose."

Once the stand was inside, Xisuma blocked off the entrance. The little beasts were fast, and he didn't want to waste an opportunity.

The two ventured further back, Xisuma glancing warily at his statue every few moments. How odd, fighting alongside his double rather than against them. And a  _ quiet _ double, too.

Xisuma tinkered with his helmet, finding and activating an overlay to better see entities. In no time, he had spotted the standbeast. He crept closer, just close enough to scan for oddities in its makeup-

Data flashed across his screen. The standbeast rushed him, slammed its bone club into his knee, and booked it. At the blocked off entrance, the standbeast halted, confused, and Xisuma's hermit-stand took the opportunity to cut it apart.

Xisuma, now sitting on the ground, quicksaved the standbeast's data and dismissed it from his display. He took a swig of a healing potion, wincing as his knee clicked back into place. Then he tapped his chat controls. "One more down," he reported. "Got a scan on it, but haven't had a chance to look yet. Should I do that now, or?"

"Keep looking for more little guys," Cleo responded. "We can look at the why of things after they're all taken care of."

\-----

Jevin ran over to Cleo, where she and the Joe statue were trying to fend off two standbeasts. He swept his sword at the creatures, watching them briefly scatter. Cleo had her book out, clearly trying to pin one of the standbeasts so she could cast something on it, but with little success.

He had an idea. It might be a stupid idea, but... he started pulling at his hoodie.

Cleo glanced over. "Uh... Jevin, why are you taking your shirt off?"

Jevin wadded up the hoodie. "You said you wanted to capture one alive?"

"I mean that'd be  _ nice,  _ but-"

"Hey!" Jevin yelled at the standbeasts. This got their attention. One ran at him. Jevin crouched and opened his arms like he was about to football-tackle the creature. As it leaped at him, Jevin stepped forward. Their combined momentum and some clever density control sent the standbeast deep into Jevin's stomach, where he immediately closed himself around it.

Cleo gave him a strange look. "I don't think that's going to-"

The standbeast squirmed, knocking Jevin stumbling and making him groan. Before he could say anything, the creature thrashed harder. Jevin's eyes widened, and then he was closing them in frantic concentration. "Nope, nope," he muttered. "Too strong, get out,  _ out-" _

And out the standbeast went indeed, but on its own terms, more quickly than Jevin could have expelled it. It thrashed and hit and burst its way free, taking a huge chunk of blue slime with it. Jevin cried out and fell to his knees, then onto his side, clutching his stomach.

"Jevin, oh my god," Cleo cried, sounding more frustrated than concerned. "I could have told you that wouldn't work! I thought you were just going to throw your shirt at the thing!"

"That... would probably have been smarter," Jevin grunted. His body was clearly trying to heal itself, but blue cytoplasm was still pouring onto the ground, seeping near-invisibly into the warped nylium. He pushed the sweater toward Cleo. "You could try-"

"Not with that," Cleo replied. "You are about to die and when you respawn you'll just take the sweater with you." She looked around, her eyes resting on her armor stand bodyguard. "That'll do, hold still a mo'." Cleo efficiently pulled the dyed leather shirt off the armor stand. She jumped on the standbeast, which was still slowed by the slime clinging to it, and wrangled it until it was almost completely buried in the shirt. Just in time, as at that moment Jevin, his sweater, and most of the slime hindering the standbeast all vanished.

The standbeast's struggling increased. Cleo just barely managed to turn the book, which had been hastily dropped on the ground, to the right page. She spat out the deanimation spell. The standbeast slowed.

A moment later, it flailed again, causing the startled Cleo to drop it. As soon as it hit the ground, the standbeast wiggled out of the confines of the shirt and ran away.

She unmuted herself in the communicator as Jevin tried to explain what had happened to a confused and worried group. "Okay everyone, somewhat bad news," Cleo interrupted. "The little guys are not deanimating. So go ahead and just break, destroy, whatever any of the ones you find, because I can't do anything to them."

"Oh no, does that mean I died in vain?" Jevin said with exaggerated disappointment.

"Yes, it does," answered Cleo. "Although you did  _ help _ capture that guy, and now I know not to waste our time trying to catch more of them."

"Well, good," Jevin chuckled. "There's that, at least."

"Anyway, you get back to the fight as soon as possible," Cleo ordered him. "We'll need your agility and sword skills. And keep your shirt on this time."

\-----

Xisuma dug out the cave entrance and trotted out, his armor stand close behind. They hadn’t gotten very far when he saw two more standbeasts rushing toward him and one toward his armor stand. He glanced around quickly, looking for cover.

“Up here, brother!” came a voice from above him. Xisuma reached up, and Ren helped pull him onto the top of one of the decorative mushrooms. The standbeasts leaped at him. One fell short, but the other grabbed his foot. Xisuma yelped and tried to shake it off, but it held firm until Ren whacked it apart with his axe. The other, with no way of getting to Xisuma, didn’t seem to know what to do, despite its friend attacking Xisuma’s stand a few feet away. Xisuma drew his bow and shot it.

Drawn to the commotion, Wels’s armor stand appeared from the north path, and another standbeast ran in from the east. The stand drew the attention of both standbeasts, letting one beat its club on the shield while the hermit-stand swiped at the other critter. 

Ren switched to his bow as well, deciding which to aim for. One climbed up the Wels stand’s shield and jumped onto its shoulder. Ren focused on that one, but just as with False’s stand, Wels’s stand twisted to fight the standbeast, and Ren’s arrow hit the knight’s stand instead of the beast. It clattered apart, leaving the standbeast briefly stuck under the shield. Xisuma jumped down onto the shield, his boots trapping the standbeast long enough to cut its head off, and turned to see that his own stand had taken care of the one on it.

“Uh, I think my stand guy just died,” Wels’s voice came through the communicators.

“Yeah,” Ren confirmed sheepishly. “Bit of friendly fire - sorry, dude. It was fighting valiantly to the very end, though!”

“Same thing happened to mine,” False pointed out. “No great loss though, right?”

“A clearer head is certainly not a bad thing,” Wels agreed. “There can’t be many of the little guys left anyway. Cleo?”

“Yeah, that’s almost everyone. Tango and Impulse said they’d gotten a couple and I saw a broken one that I assume one of the other stand-servants got, which leaves one unaccounted for...”

“Not anymore,” came Jevin’s voice. “Found it lurking around my elytra shop and got it with one of the axes from the discount-tool box.”

“What, no storing it for later?” Cleo teased.

Jevin chuckled. “You’re not going to let me live that down any time soon, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Right then, everyone who’s still in the district, reconvene at this area’s entrance, where we started. Bring any stands, heads, armor, etcetera that you’ve picked up.”

\-----

The hermits and their remaining armor stands gathered around a chest that Cleo had placed just outside the district. As they returned all the bits and pieces of standbeasts and hermit-stands that had broken, Cleo turned to Xisuma. “So, you said you scanned one? What kind of information did you get from that?”

Xisuma pulled up the saved data onto the inside of his visor, then projected it in front of him so Cleo could see. “Most of this is just basic stuff,” Xisuma explained. “The position data’s all funky, of course, since the thing was moving around, and there’s the list of what it had on it... but that-” he pointed at a word in Galactic - “That’s telling me about the soul magic in the stand.”

“That is usually how they animate, I think,” Cleo said. “Any clues as to where it’s from?” By then, a few other hermits were listening in out of curiosity.

“Um... over here...” Xisuma pulled up another string of text and a diagram. “It’s a little muddled. I’m seeing a hotspot somewhere around there.” He pointed to a spot just under a lamp post. “Which I suppose started as a cracked soul lantern or something. But that hotspot is drawing from... underground? What kind of soul source...”

Impulse raised his eyebrows in realization and lightly punched Tango in the arm.

“Hey!” Tango protested. “What- ...oh. Right.”

Xisuma looked over at him. “Tango? You know where this is coming from?”

“Yeah, I have a feeling,” Tango nodded, running one hand through his hair. “I think maybe I’m an idiot who didn’t close everything down properly. With no one down there every few minutes putting out flames as they appear... Decked Out might be generating a bunch of soul energy.”

“I’d even say a hell of a lot,” Cleo asserted, “seeing as we’re halfway across the island from where you’ve said the edge is and there’s still enough around to get my little buggers moving with so much energy that I couldn’t even stop them.”

“Well, the hotspot here is acting like a bit of a conduit,” Xisuma clarified. “But I’d imagine the magic would have to be pretty close regardless, and generating enough to keep feeding into it.”

“I’m sorry about this, guys,” Tango sighed. “I had no idea the game was even doing that, or I would have cleared out the soul flame system as soon as I shut the game down. Once that’s not doing its thing anymore, the magic should clear out eventually, right?”

“Should do, yeah.”

Tango nodded. “Excellent. I’d hate to see this area not be able to be returned to its former armor-stand glory. I guess it's back into the maintenance tunnels I go one more time, once we’re done here. I’ll disconnect all the flame-ificators and put out all the fires, and then Cleo can put back all the little jerks without them attacking us again.”

“Thank you, Tango,” Cleo smiled. “And I know you did a bit of dabbling in armor stand magic yourself, so maybe you can help me out with resetting them? In a few days, of course, just to be sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did an inordinate amount of figuring to write this fic :P I had to rewatch a few videos to get the layout of the area right, and I made a SPREADSHEET to keep track of who's killed what. And if you look closely, you can see that every hermit involved does, at one point, exactly copy what their stand was doing or something that happened with the diorama - right down to Ren accidentally shooting and breaking Wels' stand in the confusion.


End file.
